The All-American Boy (1973)

          It’s hard to imagine a cryptic, downbeat, pretentious character study like The All-American Boy receiving a major-studio release during any time other than the New Hollywood era of the late ’60s and early ’70s, because everything about this strange picture epitomizes what was wonderful—and frustrating—about that glorious period. Viewed charitably, writer-director Charles Eastman’s movie is like an enigmatic song by, say, Bob Dylan or Paul Simon, inasmuch as the film contains beautiful flashes of humanity and insight, even though the overall meaning is elusive. Eastman divides the film into sequences, even subtitling the picture “The Manly Art in Six Rounds,” and the story unfolds impressionistically. In each “round,” the main character occupies a slightly different stage of life, and the recurring theme seems to be that he’s boxing with existence itself—sometimes he struggles to break free of small-town claustrophobia, and sometimes he acts out against the expectations associated with success. (Central to The All-American Boy is that quintessentially ’70s archetype, the I-gotta-be-me protagonist whose self-involved caprice vexes everyone he meets.)

          Jon Voight, working hard to transform Eastman’s sketch of a protagonist into a fully rendered portrait, stars as Vic Bealer, a thirtysomething guy from a rural community who dreams of becoming a champion boxer. Throughout the movie, Vic moves back and forth between his boxing life, where he achieves success under the tutelage of vulgar trainer Arty Bale (Ned Glass), and his domestic life, where he romances both Drenna (Anne Archer) and Janelle (E.J. Peaker). Vic wins championships and steadily proceeds toward a spot on the Olympic team, then inexplicably walks away from sports. He also builds a life with Janelle, even fathering a son, before destroying that situation, as well. Yet Eastman tries to show Vic manifesting something akin to moral authority, as when he rebuffs a pathetic business overture from his brother-in-law (Art Metrano).

          One assumes the gist of the piece reveals itself in the final sequence, during which someone tells Vic that freedom is an illusion—shades of the famous line from “Me and Bobby McGee”—so it’s possible Eastman was after something about ’60s/’70s wanderers playing a dangerous game by naïvely pursuing individualism. He might also have been after something about masculinity, paralleling the brutality of boxing with the way Vic inflicts pain on the people in his life.

          The All-American Boy is maddeningly vague, but many individual scenes are potent. The edgy surrogate-father stuff with the manager is vivid, as is an uncomfortable sequence of Vic visiting Janelle in a recording studio while she lays down vocals for a pop song. Every so often, The All-American Boy edges into pure grandiosity, particularly during the climax, which involves a helicopter, a marching band, and rolling fields of tall yellow grass, all photographed in glorious long-lens widescreen by cinematographer Philip Lathrop. Since Eastman never directed another movie, The All-American Boy recalls another arty 1973 picture from a one-and-done filmmaker, James William Guercio’s dark Electra Glide in Blue. Although Electra Glide is infinitely more grounded, both are beguilingly offbeat.

The All-American Boy: FUNKY

Trackdown (1976)

          Tough, nasty, and violent, Trackdown tells the story of a modern-day cowboy who travels to the big city because his little sister has gone missing, then dives headlong into a cesspool of human exploitation and organized crime while looking for his lost sibling. The movie is something of a cousin to Paul Schrader’s provocative Hardcore (1979), although Schrader’s movie deals with pornography instead of prostitution, and there’s a big gulf between the theologically charged Hardcore and the no-frills Trackdown. Still, what both movies share is the rich premise of a man from a simple place wading through the muck of late-’70s Los Angeles, where pretty dreamers looking for new opportunities are easy prey for flesh merchants. In fact, had a stronger actor been cast in the lead of Trackdown, the movie might have found a niche among the era’s memorable exploitation films, since it benefits from a well-constructed plot, interesting supporting characters, and vivid action scenes. Alas, while James Mitchum inherited his father Robert’s hangdog eyes and hulking physique, he didn’t get his dad’s charisma or talent.

          The picture begins with Betsy Calhoun (Karen Lamm) running away from her Montana home and taking a bus to Hollywood. Almost immediately after her arrival, she’s mugged by a group of Latino street toughs, but one of the Latinos takes sympathy on her plight. He’s Chucho (Erik Estrada). Chucho gives Lynn a place to crash and a lead on work, so they become friends—but Chucho’s cronies have designs on the pretty blonde. They kidnap and drug Lynn, delivering her to Johnny Dee (Vince Cannon), a mob-connected pimp. He entrusts Lynn to high-priced call girl Barbara (Anne Archer), who offers to train Lynn as a prostitute. In one of the picture’s most interesting nuances, Lynne accepts the overture after she’s recovered from the influence of drugs—as she explains, there’s a reason she left small-town America for the bright lights and endless promise of the Golden State. Once Lynn’s brother, Jim (Mitchum), shows up to “rescue” her, he quickly learns that he’s looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found.

          Lest the preceding give the false impression that Trackdown is a sensitive exploration of human feeling, it should be emphasized that Trackdown is a lowbrow thrill ride. (Note the fact that Cathy Lee Crosby, who plays a social worker and provides a love interest for Mitchum’s character, spends most of the movie wearing skin-tight jeans and revealing tied-off shirts.) Nonetheless, the filmmakers take their time establishing characters and situations in logical ways, so once the shooting starts, there’s a believable emotional context. Furthermore, while one might expect this sort of film to be presented in the grungy style of a Roger Corman-produced quickie, Trackdown instead has the look of a studio picture, and the polished images get juiced by tasty, disco-infused musical scoring. 

Trackdown: FUNKY

Cancel My Reservation (1972)

Funnyman Bob Hope played his last big-screen leading role in this limp, old-fashioned farce about a cowardly smartass who stumbles onto intrigue while vacationing near Native American land in Arizona. Written and photographed in roughly the same style that had been employed for Hope’s comedies since the World War II era, Cancel My Reservation uses a contrived and silly plot as a delivery device for rapid-fire jokes, and the wheezy gags take unkind jabs at everything from indigenous peoples to women’s rights. The ages of the leading actors are distracting, as well. Despite being nearly 70 years old when he made this picture, Hope is put across as the virile center of a love triangle, with the character’s wife (played by 48-year-old Eva Marie Saint) and a sexy squaw (played by 25-year-old Anne Archer, decidedly not of Native American heritage) competing for his affections. Hope’s ability to land zingers remained sharp his entire life, so forgiving viewers might be able to chuckle a few times during Cancel My Reservation. Most folks, however, will find the piece irritatingly artificial and moderately distasteful. Here’s the setup. After fighting with his wife/cohost Sheila (Saint) one too many times, Dan (Hope) takes a trip to his ranch out west, only to find a dead body in his house. The body disappears, but not before Dan gets into a hassle with the local constabulary. Later, he finds a live body in his house—naked and willing “Crazy” (Archer). This doesn’t sit well with Sheila, who arrives unexpectedly and discovers Dan with “Crazy.” Together, these three solve a mystery involving land grabs and police corruption. In a typically dumb scene, Dan and Sheila seek advice from Indian mystic “Old Bear” (Chief Dan George), who looks at his visitors and says the following via subtitles: “This chick is out of sight—and I wish he was!”  Familiar players Ralph Bellamy, Keenan Wynn, Henry Darrow, and Forrest Tucker round out the supporting cast, while Johnny Carson, Bing Crosby, John Wayne, and Flip Wilson all cameo in a dream sequence. 

Cancel My Reservation: LAME

1980 Week: Hero at Large

          An innocent fable very much in the Frank Capra mode, Hero at Large tells the story of a normal New Yorker who adopts the guise of a superhero simply because helping other people makes him feel good. Seeing as how his innocent motivations become complicated by money and romance, the goal of the story is asking whether a genuinely decent human being can find a place in the cynical modern world. Timing-wise, it didn’t hurt that Hero at Large was released two years after the blockbuster success of Superman (1978), starring Christopher Reeve, which demonstrated the public’s appetite for old-fashioned heroism. Given this context, there’s every reason to believe Hero at Large could have become a sleeper hit had it delivered on its own promise. Unfortunately, neither director Martin Davidson nor screenwriter Stephen J. Friedman delivered exemplary work. Hero at Large is earnest and periodically charming, but it’s also contrived, shallow, and trite. There’s a reason why the filmmakers couldn’t attract A-list acting talent, even though leading man John Ritter—attempting to translate his Three’s Company TV fame into movie stardom—gives a likeable performance.

          Set in New York, the story focuses on Steve Nichols (Ritter), an actor who can’t catch a break in his career. To pay the bills, he takes a gig dressing as Captain Avenger, the comic-book character whose exploits have been adapted into a new movie. The idea of using actors to portray Captain Avenger at theaters showing the film was hatched by PR man Walter Reeves (Bert Convy), whose company also handles publicity for the re-election campaign of the city’s mayor. One evening, while still dressed as Captain Avenger, Steve foils a burglary at a convenience store. His bravery makes headlines, so Walter hatches a scheme—find out which actor did the good deed, put the man on the payroll, and use the resulting publicity to enrich the mayor’s image. Two birds with one stone.

          As should be apparent, the plot is rather laborious, and a good portion of the film is wasted on dry scenes explaining the logic of circumstances and situations. This talky approach drains most of the fun out of the enterprise. Similarly, Steve’s repartee-filled romance with his next-door neighbor, Jolene Walsh (Anne Archer), strives for the effortless wit of classic screwball comedy but doesn’t come close. (Fun fact: Archer was one of the actresses who auditioned for the part of Lois Lane in Superman, eventually losing the role to Margot Kidder, so Hero at Large represents superhero-cinema sloppy seconds.) While the fundamental shortcoming of Hero at Large is the weak script, Davidson could have helped matters considerably by adopting a breakneck pace. Instead, the movie sprawls across 98 minutes that feel much longer. So, while it’s hard to dislike a movie that tries this hard to engender goodwill, it’s equally difficult to generate enthusiasm for something that’s mired in well-meaning mediocrity.

Hero at Large: FUNKY

Paradise Alley (1978)

          While Paradise Alley is unmistakably a major ego trip for Sylvester Stallone—he wrote, directed, and stars in the picture, and he even (over)sings the theme song—his onscreen presence is more muted than one might expect, given the circumstances. A cornball ensemble piece about three Italian-American brothers living in Hell’s Kitchen circa the late ’40s, the film as much a showcase for costars Armand Assante and Lee Canalito as it is for Stallone. In fact, Canalito gets the showiest part because he spends much of the movie in a wrestling ring, playing the same sort of undereducated underdog that Stallone did in Rocky (1976) and its endless sequels. Yet if Stallone demonstrated restraint by ensuring that Paradise Alley wasn’t entirely about his character, that’s the only restraint he demonstrated—in every other regard, Paradise Alley is florid, overwrought, and schmaltzy.

          Our hero, Cosmo Carboni (Stallone), is a street hustler who anachronistically wears long hair and an earring while he pulls one scheme after another because he doesn’t want to work for a living. His brother Victor (Canalito) is a gentle giant who hauls ice up apartment-building stairs for a living—which means that, of course, we get an epic, sweaty scene of Victor lugging ice, only to have it fall down and shatter (in slow motion). Their other sibling, Lenny (Assante), is a haunted war veteran with a limp who works as an undertaker. Because, you see, he’s dead inside. Subtlety, thy name is not Stallone. As the turgid narrative unfolds, Cosmo courts Lenny’s ex, dancehall girl Annie (Anne Archer), and Cosmo gets into hassles with local mobster Stitch (Kevin Conway, giving the film’s most cartoonish performance). Eventually—which is to say, halfway through the movie, once Stallone remembers to generate a plot—Cosmo asks Victor to become a wrestler so the family can get rich. Inexplicably, this decision transforms Lenny into an avaricious prick, allowing Stallone to twist the story so his character can grow a conscience. 

          After several diverting but pointless sequences—Lenny decides he wants Annie back, Cosmo bonds with a broken-down wrestler (Frank McRae), and so on—the movie climaxes in an interminable wrestling match that is set, for no reason except that Stallone wanted a visual flourish, during a rainstorm. Cue repetitive shots of Canalito and his sparring partner flipping each other into puddles for maximum slow-mo splashing! The great cinematographer László Kovács shoots the hell out of Stallone’s absurd scenes, making the movie look better than it deserves, and the acting is so flamboyant that many scenes have energy. However, Paradise Alley is both clichéd and confusing—it’s as if Stallone couldn’t decide which old movies he wanted to pillage, so he copped something from all of them. Combined with the excessive storytelling style, the haphazard cribbing from vintage cinema turns Paradise Alley into an unappealing jumble.

Paradise Alley: LAME

Good Guys Wear Black (1978)

          Considering that Chuck Norris achieved fame as a karate champion and as one of Bruce Lee’s most formidable onscreen sparring partners, it’s surprising that his first significant starring role was not in a martial-arts flick. Instead, Good Guys Wear Black is a quintessentially ’70s conspiracy picture, complete with nefarious politicians ordering hits on the commandos who participated in a Vietnam-era covert op. Norris gets to unleash his signature roundhouse kicks in a few combat scenes, but for the most part he treks from one location to the next, accompanied by an alluring mystery lady (Anne Archer), as he investigates the identities of the Washington, D.C., power players who targeted him for elimination. Yet even though Good Guys Wear Black has a bit more ambition than the usual grindhouse thriller, it’s not particularly good.
          The photography and production values look cheap, especially during the prologue of a nighttime raid in Vietnam, the star wattage is low (Gilligan’s Island costar Jim Backus gets special billing for a pointless cameo as a doorman), and Norris is wooden. In fact, he’s the virtual poster child for athletes trying to become movie stars; he cuts a solid figure but can’t deliver dialogue smoothly, so director Ted Post wisely restricts Norris to a flat monotone in most scenes. Furthermore, the less said about Norris’ attempts to express emotion, the better. Archer, who looks fantastic, fares somewhat better but not by much, and she and Norris benefit from the grown-up dialogue that was presumably contributed by co-screenwriter Mark Medoff (the playwright of Children of a Lesser God). James Franciscus has fun chewing on his role as a Machiavellian politician angling for a job as Secretary of State, although his big speech at the end is filled with movie-villain clichés.
          As for the action, it’s solid but sporadic—Norris’ extended brawl with an assassin at an airport is the only scene that delivers the sort of elaborate, high-kicking whammies the leading man’s fans might expect. Ultimately, Good Guys Wear Black is not exciting enough to work as an action picture, and not smart enough to work as a thriller—but it’s still is a watchable misfire, because the filmmakers deserve some small credit for trying to deliver dramatic heft within the action genre’s limited parameters.

Good Guys Wear Black: FUNKY

The Honkers (1972)

Unremarkable in every regard, this character study of a self-involved rodeo rider pales when compared to the similar films Junior Bonner and When the Legends Die, both of which were released in the same year. However The Honkers does feature two highly watchable stars, James Coburn and Slim Pickens, and it gets credibility points for following a bleak storyline toward an ending that’s both downbeat and restrained. Coburn stars as Lew, an aging cowpoke who spends so much time on the road that his marriage to long-suffering Linda (Lois Nettleton) is permanently endangered. When he’s away from home, dallying with married women in between bronc-riding competitions, Lew travels with a chummy rodeo clown named Clete (Pickens), who does his best to keep Lew from getting killed on the job or in the brawls Lew instigates in his downtime. When the movie begins, Lew has just returned home for a spell between rodeo tours, so he tries to pick up the pieces of his marriage and to strengthen his relationship with his teenaged son, Bobby (Ted Eccles). Meanwhile, the stable-but-boring Royce (Richard Anderson) quietly woos Linda away from her wayward husband, and a beautiful young heiress, Deborah (Anne Archer), tries to tempt Lew into her bed. The story becomes a question of whether Lew will choose the straight and narrow or remain on his destructive course, and to the filmmakers’ credit, Lew stays true to his unsympathetic colors from start to finish. Unfortunately, nothing he does is especially interesting, so the solid character work is wasted on ordinary vignettes of redneck rambunctiousness and rodeo wrangling. Additionally, Coburn doesn’t have anywhere near the depth necessary for the lead role, so he’s outshined by Nettleton’s believable angst and by Pickens’ homespun gravitas; in fact, seeing Pickens play one of his few fully developed dramatic roles is the best reason to see the movie. The Honkers isn’t bad, but it isn’t great, either.

The Honkers: FUNKY

Lifeguard (1976)

          Based on its title alone, to say nothing of the wretched poster that Paramount created to market the picture, Lifeguard should be a sleazy sex comedy. Instead, it’s a fairly serious character piece about an iconoclastic man wrestling with other people’s perceptions of his prolonged-adolescent lifestyle. Sam Elliott, his signature sweet ’stache already firmly secured on his upper lip, plays Rick, an L.A. lifeguard in his 30s, making him a good ten years older than most of the other buff dudes running up and down Southern California’s beaches in little red shorts. Over the course of one summer, he trains a young apprentice (Parker Stevenson), dallies with a precocious teenager (Kathleen Quinlan), tries to rekindle an old spark with his high-school girlfriend (Anne Archer), and listens to family and friends who say it’s time to put away the SPF and get a real job. Coloring the storyline is the enduring allure of the mythic SoCal lifestyle as celebrated in the songs of the Beach Boys, among myriad other pop-culture artifacts, because virtually no mention is made of current events or even the turbulent goings-on of the late ’60s—which would have been the period of the protagonist’s early adulthood. Therefore, one gets a sense of a man who’s been hiding from the ugliness of the outside world by grooving on the beauty of the rays and the waves. In one telling scene, Rick explains that he likes winters even more than summers because during the cold months, he has the beach all to himself. So even though nothing about Lifeguard invites deep analysis, there’s something meaningful pulsing beneath the film’s bronzed skin.

          Rest assured, however, there’s a touch of raunchiness here and there—think sexy flings at Rick’s bachelor pad, pervy teenage boys chasing busty women at the beach, a senior-citizen flasher, etc. Yet Ron Koslow’s competent screenplay mostly focuses on Rick’s sun-kissed ennui. For instance, the vignette of Rick getting his aging ass kicked by younger lifeguards in a running/swimming race is poignant, especially because that’s when his under-aged playmate (the Quinlan character) first realizes her lover isn’t the immortal hero she thought him to be. In fact, that whole relationship is handled intelligently and tenderly, with the filmmakers neither celebrating nor condemning Rick’s decision to sleep with a teenager. Similarly, the textures of the protagonist’s relationship with his old flame discourage simple reactions. To be clear, Lifeguard has a certain kitsch factor (two words: theme song), and Rick’s I-gottta-be-me attitude is so ’70s that it’s almost a cliché. Yet like its title character, the movie displays unexpected depth, an effect complemented by Elliott’s surprisingly nuanced performance. Koslow, by the way, later wrote the charmingly weird comedy Into the Night (1984) and created the supernatural TV series Beauty and the Beast and Moonlight.

Lifeguard: FUNKY